A group of high school students in California have completed a year-long project to build a working, life-sized Viper simulator.
Based on the ship used in Battlestar Galactica, the five students began collecting funds via Kickstarter last year for the project. The simulator is a fully functional cockpit that can rotate a full 360 degrees while in “flight.” It was designed using from scrapped airplane parts, old race car seat and other items. The kids even made all the control mechanisms and designed the simulation software themselves.
The young designers unveiled the simulator at the Maker Faire 2012 festival in California. They rasied $11,578 via Kickstarter to pay for the project.
Thanks to the power of YouTube, we’ve got a couple of videos so you can check out the Viper for yourself. Or if you’re in the area of the Maker Faire, you can drop by and see it in person.
As someone who while in high school became hooked on the original BSG and also dreamed of being able to design and build a Viper of her own in her backyard, this is SO AWESOME I could almost cry.